DIGEST 2006 - Sabita

South Africa's education system:
A systemic overhaul is vital to
sustainable skills acquisition
Emile Horak
Professor and Head of Department
of Civil Engineering
and Biosystems Engineering
University of Pretoria
One of the realisations
South Africa has
experienced since 1994
is that the welcome to the
international scene had a
sweet as well as a bitter side.
The sweet side was the
obvious miracle of democracy
and all it brought to all our
people. The down-side of
democracy is that it also
brings international
competitiveness to your door,
together with a lot of bitter
lessons.
Michael Porter (1990) studied the
international competitiveness of
nations, and he found that the
quality of education, and
particularly that in science, maths
and technology, is one of the main
underlying factors influencing the
success of a nation in such a
globally competitive situation.
Lawless (2005), in her study on
trends and figures in the civil
engineering profession in South
Africa, showed that for both
medical and all engineering
professionals in SA, the ratio of
population to professionals was
between 2000-2500:1 while for
first world countries it ranges
between 100-500:1. This disparity
in benchmarking with the
developed world can be further
verified in Figure 1 (see following
page), which shows the results of
a recent study (Fricke et al, 2006)
of the ratio of persons of the
24-year old population per country
qualified in Science and
Engineering (S&E).
This clearly shows that South
Africa is not even the leader in
Africa, and extremely weak when
benchmarked against Japan, the
UK or the Nordic countries. The
use of 24-year olds also implies a
longer term impact, as it is
persons of that age, with the right
skills and qualifications, who will
sustain any competitive position
over the next 10 to 15 years.
The recent economic growth in SA
has been spectacular by all
standards, but the realisation that
sustainability may become an
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